Go Ahead and Crown Him: Collin Morikawa Opens Six-Shot Lead at Kapalua
KAPALUA, Hawaii – If on Sunday Collin Morikawa doesn’t cash a check for $2.7 million and claim his first victory since the 2021 Open Championship at Royal St. Georges, it will be all on him.
It’s been 28 tournaments, or 96 rounds, since the Cal Bear product has won on the PGA Tour.
And while he did win the 2021 DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, his world ranking has dropped from 3rd after his Open win to currently 11th.
At 25, all this may seem a bit trivial. It’s clear no matter what happens on Sunday in the final round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions, Morikawa will win many more times on the PGA Tour. But giving up his current six-shot lead would clearly sting.
“It's been pretty simple today,” Morikawa said after a third-round 8-under 65.” Kind of over the past three days, is where I've been looking is kind of where the ball's been going.”
Can that continue for one more day? Does it need to?
The cushion Morikawa has created, six shots clear of Matthew Fitzpatrick, J.J. Spaun and Scottie Scheffler, is not insurmountable, but if you ran the numbers it would mean that any one of the three would have to shoot a 66 to Morikawa’s 73 just to get into a playoff.
If Morikawa shot a pedestrian 3-under 70, the three closest pursuers would have to post a 63, which would match Max Homa’s Saturday score for low round of the week.
There are no gimmies on the PGA Tour, but logically, this leaves the result in Morikawa’s hands.
Leads are lost all the time, but not normally by a player who is bogey-free over 54-holes, with 22 birdies and one eagle.
The sheer dominance would make you question how Morikawa could possibly lose from here. The only clear way is for him to aid the others – maybe a loss of concentration or a bad bounce. His swing finds a demon, or his putter cools off.
Those setbacks are all possible, but highly improbable.
“I think at the end of the day for me, I'm still pretty result-oriented,” Morikawa said. “Winning is showing you're doing something right. At the end of the day like that's where you want to build to. There's a lot of steps to get there and I've always talked about that. You work on this piece, work on that piece to kind of put it all together.”
At the end of the day Morikawa seems to be playing too well to muck up his sixth win on the PGA Tour.